Lessons in Vulnerability
by frombluetored
Summary: "I love you. I wanted—I wanted this face to say it. Because this is the face that fell in love with you. My next face is just the face that gets to love you the way I wish I would have gotten the chance to." This time, the Doctor doesn't regenerate alone.


**A/n:** This is me trying to come to terms with the devastating news. I hope it offers a little reassurance to anyone else out there who's struggling with the announcement! Feedback is always appreciated :)

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It was never as grandiose as she would have imagined.

But then, dying was hardly ever grandiose. It was sad, weak, and ultimately quiet. Quiet inside, and sometimes, quiet out.

It was just that he had been such a grandiose man. His personality, his fashion sense, and every single emotion he'd ever experienced were huge. He was whimsical and powerful and larger than life in every way. And so when she wrapped her head around what was happening, she couldn't believe it for a moment, because surely this wouldn't be it. Surely he couldn't fade away like this, right here. Shouldn't the world come to a complete standstill? Shouldn't everything _stop?_

She'd learned with her own mother that the world was harshly and coldly uncaring when it came to death. She'd just assumed that it would care more when it was its savior's death.

It had been largely insignificant. When the gun went off, she honestly believed for a moment that it'd missed him somehow. She stood absolutely still, her body shielded behind his, and even when he stumbled back, she waited for him to laugh it off.

"Oh," he had said, his voice almost completely nonchalant. His arms had been thrown out to his sides, shielding her with everything he had, but now they were moving and pressing to his front. "Oh."

And she waited, her face pale and her legs shaking, for something to happen. She watched blood drip in small circles into the snow, and as it melted small craters, she felt the horror begin seeping into her.

_No, _she thought, and she figured if she just held onto that thought that she could save him again. _No, no, no, no!_

"Doctor!" She said, and once she said that, everything slammed into her. The horror, the realization, and torment. She grabbed his shoulders from behind him and stared at the snow beneath him, where the blood was steadily dripping.

Her hands slipped from his shoulders as his knees gave out from underneath him. He fell down slowly, as if letting go of control over one muscle group at a time, and when he was on his knees in front of the aliens, Clara was left staring into their faces. Her maternal instinct was to fall down beside him, to cradle him to her chest and take him somewhere where they could fix it. It wasn't too late, wounds like that could be fixed. Even humans could recover from that. But the creatures were advancing once more, and Clara knew he wouldn't survive another wound. When she stepped quickly in front of him, her eyes already burning and her heart heavier than it had ever been, she felt his hand on the back of her leg.

"Clara, please, no!" He begged her, but she wouldn't let him die, didn't he get that? After all she had done for him, she wouldn't let him go like this. They weren't even supposed to be involved in this. They had just travelled to this planet—that now Clara couldn't even recall the name of—to celebrate Christmas, only to get swept up in some sort of civil war. And now her Doctor was on the ground, possibly severely damaged, from taking a blow that wasn't even meant for him.

She had no weapon, as weapons weren't the Doctor's style. He'd attempted to negotiate with them, but she had been who they'd chosen to take their distaste with that idea out on. And the idiotic man had jumped in front of her, and Clara was certain her heart was shattering beyond repair.

She had nothing left to do but plead. Pleading was not her style, it never had been. Just like falling in love wasn't her style, and being vulnerable was off limits, but the Doctor had a way of changing up everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world.

"Please," she said, and she couldn't do anything about the way her voice was quivering. "Please, don't. He's already hurt, can't you see? He just wanted to help you. We don't even belong here. We were just—we were just celebrating Christmas!"

She pulled at her hair, suddenly almost hysterical with panic and pain. What if he couldn't be helped? What if he regenerated?

The creatures seemed to falter a bit at her words.

"I don't even know what you are, I don't know what this war is about, I just want to take him back to the TARDIS!"

When she began openly weeping, they dropped their weapons to their sides, and it didn't make any sense to her.

"I'm sorry!" She gasped, but she had no idea what she was apologizing for. She didn't know what they had done wrong. "Just…leave him alone, please!"

The tallest blue creature in the front appeared to be the leader. He inclined his head at her once, sorrow flooding his face. It transformed his features so completely that she felt for a moment that he truly, honestly felt her pain.

"We recognize your gesture of respect and reciprocate it. You are free to leave."

She didn't stop to question it. She barely even registered the rush of relief. She turned her back to them immediately and bent over, gently grabbing the Doctor's upper arms and tugging with all her strength.

"We have to go," she told him, and she couldn't stand how pale his face was. His lips were quivering and his eyes were glazed over with tears. The more she tugged, the more he winced in pain, but she couldn't leave him here in the snow. She couldn't sit here and watch as his blood colored the earth.

"Doctor!" She yelled, but suddenly she couldn't even make him out through her tears. She stopped tugging for a second, weakened with sorrow, but then she felt him rising slowly. When he was to his feet, he stumbled over and leaned heavily against her, his breath coming out in pain filled gasps.

The walk to the TARDIS was horrifying. She spent the entire journey practically carrying the Doctor and pleading with the TARDIS in her mind to somehow find them. She didn't know if she listened, because she didn't even remember where they had put her in the first place, but the walk was shorter than she had anticipated.

Clara pushed her hip into the door and it swung back freely. That chilled her and made her even more aware of the severity of the situation.

When the Doctor collapsed back to his knees once they were in the console room, she fell down with him.

"Doctor, what do I do?" She pleaded. She hovered her hand over the small hole in his vest, now surrounded by a sea of blood, unsure whether to press her hand to it or not. She had taken first aid classes when she first started nannying—just in case—but she couldn't remember anything now. "Please, what do I do?!"

Her vision was blurred by tears once more. And then she felt the Doctor's hands, soft and somehow still warm, cradle her face. He swept his thumbs almost soothingly over her cheeks.

"You have done enough for me, Clara." He told her, and she didn't like the tone of his voice. It was final, it was tired. It was the voice of a man who had given up.

She shook her head frantically. She could feel tears spilling down her face, but she couldn't stop them. She remembered enough, briefly, to know that she needed to apply pressure to it. When her small hands pressed over it firmly, he let out a gasp of pain that made her immediately recoil in horror at what she'd done. But then the TARDIS made an almost insistent noise above her, and she pressed her hands back quickly. But the blood kept coming, and she couldn't accept his previous words. She hadn't done enough.

"No! It wasn't enough! It wasn't enough, because you're hurt, and I have to save you. Please, Doctor, tell me what to do!"

She began gasping for air, her sobs practically suffocating her for a moment. When she met his eyes, he was smiling at her with that young, ancient smile that she had fallen in love with, no matter how many times she reminded herself not to.

"I'm afraid there's nothing to be done." He told her simply, like that was that, like it was _okay._

"There's always something to be done. Always." She argued. She blinked her tears away, her hysterical sadness giving way to a determination she was much more accustomed to dealing with. "Tell me how. Tell me how to help you, and I will do it. I don't care what it is. If you need a lung, or-or, something! I don't care! Tell me a doctor to call, or a hospital to take you to!"

The tears filling his eyes were the only sign of sorrow she could see at first glance.

"I know you would, Clara. You have proven that to me thousands of times. But it's too late; regeneration is going to start very soon now. But it'll be okay, I'll still be me."

He should have known better than to lie to her. She stared at him, her stomach turning. The world was crashing down around her again, but like always, it showed no physical signs. She just felt it in the way she could hardly see or think straight, and her body was filling with pain like some sort of cursed cavity.

"It's _not _okay. You'll be you, but you won't be _you._" She whispered.

When he brushed her tears away, she almost felt guilty when more took their place.

"No, I won't. We both know that. But everything has to end at some point, Clara. And I don't regret this. If anything was worth dying for, it's you."

"No, I'm not! I'm not, I'm just a girl from Lancashire, Doctor—"

His eyes were burning with intensity. He reached down and set his hands gently on her shoulders.

"You are not just a girl. You are my Impossible Girl, my Clara. You are the one who brought me back to life and the one who kept it that way. You are the only one who could get me to love anything again. Those creatures back there, do you know why they attacked me and not you?" His voice was beginning to tear, his words stretching further and further apart. "I figured it out, while I was on the ground back there. They see pride as an insult and an attack. When I talked to them, all they could hear was my pride. Humility and vulnerability is what they measure respect in. I never would have understood the value of that before you, not really. But I understand it now. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you gain so much more than you lose. You taught me that."

He let out a sudden gasp of pain, and Clara let up a bit of the pressure on his wound.

"Doctor—"

"No, Clara, I want to say this before I'm not me anymore. I want to be the one to say it. I'm tired of running, I'm tired of hiding from the things I feel, I'm tired of nursing my stupid pride." He forced out.

And like she knew who he was each time she saw him in her echoed lives, she knew what he meant. She knew what was coming, and she knew how hard it would be for him to say it. She knew it would be harder than dying. So she withdrew her hands from his and quickly pulled her jacket off.

"At least let me dress the wound a little. So you can lie down." The last sentence was incredibly painful to push past her lips, because she suddenly got the mental image of him lying motionless in front of her. She choked back a sob and tried to find her brave face, but she knew it was in vain.

His face slipped for a moment, letting his true amount of pain show.

"Lying down would be good, I think." He admitted.

Her hands were shaking as she tied the jacket around his waist as tightly as she could. She knew it wasn't perfect, but at least it would absorb some blood. She helped him lie back on his back and then sat beside him, pressing her blood-stained hand back over the jacket. It was already blooming with red.

"Clara—" he began, his voice aching, but she stopped him.

"You don't have to say it. I know what you're going to say, and I love you too. So much. I love everything about you, Doctor, I don't want you to go." She gasped. She pulled her legs up to her chest and pressed her forehead against her knees, her entire chest aching. He lifted his hand and began to rub soothing circles on her back, and it was all so w_rong. _He was about to die, and he was comforting her.

She tried to move away from his grasp, but he merely lifted his arm for the sake of running his fingers through her hair.

"I want to say it." He said.

His voice was so weak. She turned back to look at him, uncertain, because she didn't want him to ever do anything that hurt him worse than he already was. But he was smiling at her so sadly and peacefully that she couldn't do anything but smile back, even though she was miserable.

He touched her face, his fingertips gentle and loving.

"I love you." He told her, his eyes warm and filled with an all-consuming love. "I wanted—I wanted this face to say it. Because this is the face that fell in love with you. My next face is just the face that gets to love you the way I wish I would have gotten the chance to."

Her entire body ached as violent sobs ripped through her.

"Please don't go," she wept. "Not yet!"

"I'm not leaving you. Not really." He promised. Before she could respond, his hands reached down and grabbed hers. He pulled them away from his wound, ignoring her protests.

"I'm going to regenerate, it doesn't matter." He assured her. He held her hands in his. "Will you lie with me, just until regeneration fully starts? I miss you."

A_nything, _she wanted to say, _I would do anything for you. _But instead she slid down and curled up against his side, her head resting on his chest and her arm thrown across his middle in an almost-hug. She gripped him tightly and he gripped her just as closely. He pressed his face into her hair, and it was then that he cried.

"I meant it, I did. I love you, I love you, I love you." He repeated. She wondered how long it had been since he had actually, properly said those words. That thought only made her hold him tighter.

"What if your next face doesn't love me?" She wondered, but she knew it was a pointless question the minute she said it. If he didn't love her, and didn't want her there, she would leave. Simple as that.

He shook his head.

"Never."

She could hear the pain growing stronger in his voice.

"I'm scared, Clara. I don't know who I'm going to be. It feels so much like dying." He admitted.  
"What if _you_ don't love the new me?"

And because she'd had plenty of experience dying, she felt qualified to pass on the only advice she knew that worked when dealing with that all-consuming feeling of terror and emptiness. Love and acceptance.

"I will always remind you who of you are. And I will always love you, no matter who you are, or what you do." She reached up and touched his bowtie, trying not to remember that it might be the last time she ever did that. "Or what kind of fashion you take to."

When he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, all she could taste was salt from all their tears. But she kissed him like they were happy, because she knew that that's what he needed.

When he pulled back, she could see a golden glow beginning to emit from his hands. She wouldn't let go of him, not even when he was murmuring for her to leave him into her hair, his voice pulled tight with pain. She knew all about regeneration. She knew the burst of time energy would kill her, but she didn't want him to be alone.

"I need you to be alive once I regenerate, Clara. Or I don't know what I'll do." He pleaded, and it was only that that convinced her to move. She was always saving him, after all.

She backed up until he told her she was far enough, and then the golden glow began spreading at an alarming rate. He offered her a terrified smile.

"Geronimo, my Clara. Remember me."

She cringed back into the wall and covered her eyes as the blinding light filled the console room. His screams tore through her, and just when she thought she wasn't going to be able to take it, it stopped. Her palm covering her eyes was slick with tears, and she was panting and shaking out of fear and sorrow, but she couldn't lower her hand. She wasn't sure she could take seeing another man in his clothes, standing where he should be. She wasn't sure she could ever learn to love the man who'd taken his place.

The voice that filled the room was entirely foreign.

"Blimey," he breathed. Clara thought that this whole ordeal must be so easy to handle when you don't actually know what's happening. She lowered her hand but made no attempt to open her eyes. He continued talking. "Well, it appears I'm still not ginger. But I've got legs and arms and, really, what more could a bloke hope for."

Clara was still shaking.

"Blimey!" He repeated, and this time she could hear a smile in his voice, somehow. It made her happy to know that he could smile after dying and being reborn. There was an amazed quality to his tone, like he was seeing something extraordinary that he just couldn't fathom.

"You're gorgeous, Clara. You're stunning."

It wasn't what she was expecting. In fact, it was near the opposite. She opened her eyes without even making a decision to, more out of surprise than anything. She peered at him, her face shining with tears and her lips parted in shock, and she felt her heart lighten, just a little. He wasn't her Doctor, no, but he was _the _Doctor. She could see him dancing in this man's dark eyes. She could see the love, the passion, and the bravery of her Doctor. That never changed.

She crossed her arms and sniffed a bit, eying him. He was certainly attractive, but she wasn't sure in the current moment if she'd ever get over missing that chin. But then he smiled hugely at her, his face lighting up, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Are you a smooth talker this time, then?" She found herself teasing. It wasn't up to her normal par, because her voice was quivering and tear-soaked, but it came naturally without thought. Like it did with her Doctor.

He blinked at her, his eyes so honest and loving that she couldn't help but feel even more warmth fill her.

"Am I? I'm not sure. I haven't had time to get to know myself yet." He admitted. He took a tentative half-step towards her. "Clara, I really think my old body had eyesight problems. Because I remember thinking you were beautiful, but…you're…wow."

He offered her a sheepish smile. Clara was uncertain how to deal with his open affection, because it was so different from before. She felt herself blush.

"Definitely a smooth talker, you can jot that one down." She replied.

He fidgeted for a second, and it was so close to a habit the previous Doctor would have done, but so far at the same time. Clara found the entire experience to be nothing short of traumatizing.

"_I miss you already." _She wanted to say, but saying something that vulnerable in front of him felt odd when she had only just seen him. She knew he was still him, and she still felt affection towards him, but it had taken her such a long time to let down her walls with his previous personality. She hoped it wouldn't take long this time. If he even wanted her around, that is. He had said he loved her, but that was before. And this Doctor said she was beautiful, but maybe he just meant from an objective point of view.

Her heart was feeling heavy once more.

The Doctor took a few experimental steps and then spun in a circle.

"Better sense of balance." He noted. "Better eyesight." He smiled at her. "Around the same physical age. But I'm a little shorter, I think. Am I?"

She walked towards him, a little slower than normally. When she was right in front of him, she rose up on her toes. She didn't have to stand as far up on her tip toes as she did with him before.

"Just a little." She affirmed.

He smiled. "That might make it easier for you to hug me, right?"

She felt a rush of pleasure at those words, and it made her remember what the Doctor had said to her fears of him not loving her anymore.

"Right." She agreed, and then she smiled at him.

He accepted the smile graciously and mirrored it with one even larger.

"Do you think I'm handsome?" He asked her, and he looked so anxious, like he desperately wanted to hear yes.

This made her smile grow.

"Very." She said honestly. Everything about this Doctor was darker, except his smile, which seemed to radiate such warmth and openness that it was almost like feeling the sun shining on you.

He nodded.

"Good, I guess that makes up for the fact that I'm still not ginger."

When he took a tiny step closer to her, she felt her skin tingle, like the air around them was electric. She looked up at him, a little more certain. She slowly reached up and set her hand on his cheek. She rubbed her thumb over it, her lips pulling up in a smile.

"You're still you, aren't you? My Doctor."

He set his hand over hers.

"My Clara." He said, affection practically leaking from his words, and somehow it was understood to be an affirmation. "I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled, and her eyes were filling with tears again, but this time it was in relief and happiness.

"Good." She whispered.

"We've still got some running to do, remember?" He told her. "And I've got some new legs to break in. Maybe I'll be good at baking this time around, we can make some soufflés together." He grinned. "Oh, I need to try pears."

She let out a watery laugh, and when she reached up to push away a tear that began to spill over, his hand beat hers to it. She stilled as his fingers brushed it away, and when he was looking at her, she felt like she was the most important thing in every universe there was.

"Are you okay with this? Is there anything I can do to make it easier?" He asked softly.

She bit her lip. Her first instinct was to say no, because her Doctor couldn't come back, but maybe that was okay. She knew it would take a while to stop feeling like someone had died, but she hoped she would get there.

"Will you hold me?"

She hadn't made a conscious decision to say the words, but they left her mouth anyway. She was still shaken over what she'd witnessed, still aching over her loss, and still very lonely. She missed her Doctor, but she wanted to know this one. She wanted to know him because she knew she loved him still, even though she didn't know all his quirks yet. She still knew who he was deep down, and always would.

His arms were steadier and stronger than her other Doctor's had been. He pulled her to his chest without any hesitation or flailing and held her so securely in place that, for a moment, she forgot that she belonged anywhere else.

"There's nothing I'd like more." He admitted.

She gripped him close and closed her eyes. She listened to the double-beating of his hearts. His tweed was still blood-soaked, but underneath that metallic scent, she could almost swear he smelled the same.

"I'm scared, too." He told her. She thought about what his eleventh face had said about pride, and she noted how openly this Doctor spoke, and she realized that maybe he was going to be open like this all the time. Maybe he would be open because he was born right when he finally let down his barriers.

Because it felt so right and so safe to be in his arms, she couldn't stop herself from standing on her toes long enough to press a kiss to his cheek.

"Don't be scared. I'll take care of you." She promised.

And she knew by his honest and loving gaze that he would do the same for her.


End file.
